Chapter 1

He sat on the curb, swigging from the bottle in the brown bag, and wondering how the fuck all this had happened.

Four days ago, he'd been happily on his way, his wings bright and white, his arrows red and ripe with love. His diaper was just the way he liked it, freshly pressed, nicely starched, every fold perfect and precise, and everything had been rosy in his world.

Then, he got the message. That dreaded message from the big guy. He was needed. It was urgent and only he, Cupid, could do the job. He hurried up to the top office, trying to brush down the cowlick on the front of his hair with a saliva soaked hand. Standing before the huge double golden doors, he stopped and took a deep breath. Before he could knock, the doors slowly opened, revealing a long office with a ceiling painted by Michelangelo himself, now that he wasn't busy.

At the end of the room, seated behind a massive desk of gold and silver, was the big man himself. Cupid approached slowly. He'd never been contacted personally for a job before, normally just winging it from town to town, doing his own thing. This was a big moment in his career, a make or break situation.

It seemed to take eternity to cross the room. Cupid figured that was the point of having an office that big, but he finally reached the front of the desk, standing up on tiptoes to look over the top. He studied the big man, not sure what he'd expected. Of course he'd seen pictures, who hadn't, but they didn't do him justice, not at all.

A firm square jaw was the first thing Cupid noticed. Then full but manly lips under a well trimmed mustache. God's nose was hooked at the end, and maybe a little bigger than necessary, but it was all because of the aesthetics of the idea of perfection that he had made it so. His eyes were blue, and were twinkling, but Cupid knew that when God was pissed, his eyes stormed with steely gray lights that flashed lightning at whatever poor soul had crossed him. His hair was dark brown, short and well cut. After all, being the head man in heaven meant you had connections to the best stylists, such as Delilah. He had an angular face and was well tanned. Tall and broad across the shoulders, with a charismatic presence, God made quite the package.

"Cupid! My good friend!" God pushed back from the desk and came around it, grasping Cupid's small hand in his big beefy one and shaking it so hard Cupid's feathers shook and his arrows rattled in their quiver.

"Lord," he managed to squeak as he tried to stop his teeth from chattering.

"Have a seat, have a seat." He waved the small cherub into one of the huge, deep leather chairs and took the other one instead of going around the desk. "How've you been?"

It's serious, Cupid thought. The big man never put on the front of such camaraderie. He was too busy. Even just sitting where he was, Cupid could hear the rattling of about a dozen printers behind the big desk and see ream after ream of cloud paper with heavy font disappearing into slots in the floor.

God saw him watching and laughed. "Those are nothing, just prayers that aren't realistic. The little girl in the twenty-fifth floor apartment who prays for a pony, or the man who wants to win the lottery. I wish they'd at least learn to buy a ticket before they start praying. It'd make my job easier. There are some pretty sad ones there too that I just can't answer the way they wish. Instead, they are sent to the Do Gooder's hall. We ship the prayers off to the do gooders of the world and let them handle it."

Cupid nodded as if he understood. It felt weird to him, being treated as an equal by the head man himself. He found himself looking around the office, until he noticed the silence.

"Oh," he squeaked again, "I'm sorry, Sir."

God waved his hand, shooing away the apology. "No, it's perfectly all right. It's not every day you get invited into the... 'inner sanctum.' " He made quotation marks with his fingers a la Austin Powers as Doctor Evil. "Coffee?"

Before Cupid could speak, God waved his hand and a small puff of smoke appeared. It disappeared just as quickly, leaving a stunning girl, white-blonde hair curled around her face, standing there with a tray of coffee. Even Cupid, in his cherubic state, couldn't help but notice the sensual heat that came off this girl in waves, from the tips of her pointed-toe pumps, up the long tanned legs that disappeared under a white dress that seemed very familiar, over curved hips and rounded breasts to a face that would make God himself drool, as a matter of fact, just as he was at that moment

"Mr. God," she lisped sexily. "Coffee, tea or me?" She giggled, her shoulders shaking, her breasts jiggling under the halter top.

"Just the coffee for now, Marilyn. But keep your schedule open for later." God waited as she set her tray down and then stepped back, winking at Cupid before tugging softly on one earlobe. A burst of air came from the floor and caught the blonde's skirt, pushing it up and exposing long golden thighs and just the hint of dark brown curls between them before being slapped down by the tantalizing tart.

With her legs spread and the dress blowing up around her arms, her hair blowing into her eyes, she made quite the picture, one Cupid was sure he'd seen before but he just couldn't place.

She laughed, winking at God and breaking into a chorus of "Happy Birthday, Mr. God," in a wispy little voice that reeked of sex. God waved her out of sight once more. "I know it's wrong," he said to Cupid, "but I just can't seem to stop myself. She's just so cute." He reached out and poured the coffee, adding three sugars and two creams for the cherub and handing it to him without asking. He fixed his own and sat back, sipping the rich brew with a small smile upon his face.

"Mmm, brewed fresh from the mountains of Peru by Juan Valdez's grandfather, I always knew I did good getting him before old Nick could." He sipped again before he sighed and sat the cup down. "We have a problem, Cupid and you are the only one that I can count on to fix this mess."

Cupid wondered if God's problem was with geography, since Juan was from Colombia, and not Peru.

God reached over the coffee tray and picked up a long list. Handing it to Cupid, he sat back in his chair and waited, drinking his coffee and making little "mmm" noises every once in a while.

Cupid tried to look at the list, but the noises were, well, to be frank, annoying. He tried clearing his throat and rattling the paper a few times, but God seemed in his own world. So he cleared his throat louder. And nothing.

Sip, "mmm."

Cupid closed his eyes tightly, sighed loudly, and tried once more to concentrate on the paper. He scanned the first few names before God shifted in his chair, crossing his legs with a loud swish of fabric. He blew noisily into the cup to cool the hot brew and then sipped, slurping loudly. A loud sighing "mmm" came from between his lips.

"Good God!" Cupid exclaimed before he could stop himself. Then he instantly turned white. "Oh, Lord. Oh, I am heartily sorry. I didn't mean to offend you." His hands shook again and he dropped the list to the floor with a rustle of paper.

God hastened to assure the small winged angel. "Oh no, it was me. I just can't seem to sit still. I just wished I'd have thought of having Ritalin invented when I could have used it." He shook his head. Then he turned to Cupid. "Okay, my problem, and it's a big one. It revolves around the inhabitants of Valentine Island."

"Valentine Island? I don't believe I've ever heard of that particular place, Lord."

"No, Cupid. You wouldn't. Valentine Island is older than you by many millennia. It's the place where Love evolved and now lives."

Cupid sat and stared at the big man, confusion making his normal wrinkle free skin look like that of a ninety year old man.

God sighed, he hated to have to explain himself, and after a few of the last catastrophes that came about from him getting too involved with his subjects, he'd quit meddling. Look at Noah. Lazing around for forty days on that ark full of animals and his sons' wives. Oh yeah, Noah had been sorry about that one. Big deal, so he got parked on the side of a mountain. He made it down okay. But it had taken weeks to get the stale smell of sex out of the ark.

And look at Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what he got for betting on dung beetle races. Number six should have been a shoe-in. How was he to know that the beetle had a thing for number four, and had to make a pass right in the middle of the race? Even the damn beetles in that city were gay.

Was it his fault if he got mad when he lost? They should have known by then that he had a temper. He did feel sorry about the pillar of salt thing though, even though Lot had a few good nights with his daughters because of it.

Cupid was quietly drumming his fingers on the chair arm, waiting with increasing impatience as the big man seemed lost in thought. It surprised Cupid because you'd think with a place to run the size of heaven and earth, you would be more with it. But then again, who was he to judge. He was just a little wheel in the clockwork of this organization.

"So, Cupid," God's voice seemed to boom from everywhere, startling the little angel enough so that he lost three of his wing feathers.

"God!" he exclaimed as he jumped and tried to catch the feathers.

"Yes?" the head man asked in a silky smooth voice. "I think you were wondering how I ran my organization?"

"Oh, no sir, I mean yes sir. I don't know what I mean, Lord." He took a deep breath, stashed the feathers away in his quiver for the feather pillow he was making at home, and tried to calm down. "What do you need me to do, Lord?"

"I want you to go out to the island, find out what is going on with the villagers who watch over The Love and fix what ever is wrong. It could be dirty, Cupid. It might even involve dealing with sex. But I know you can do this."

"But Lord, I don't know the first thing about sex."

"You're kidding me. You never got it on with any of the little honeys that you stick with your arrows?" He stared at Cupid for a second and then slapped himself in the forehead. "You didn't, did you? Ah., hell." Just then an elevator appeared, a door opening and a small man stepped out, holding the doors and looking around the room. Muzak poured from the open doors and Cupid started humming along with the tune, realizing before he could stop himself that it was John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High." Oh, man, he thought, I'm never going to get that out of my head.

"Next stop, Hell," the elevator operator said, looking at Cupid with a smile on his face.

God waved his hand with a sigh and the elevator disappeared. "Sorry," he said to Cupid. "I just can't get used to the voice command functions. I really miss the red button. It was so much more intimidating, the trap door that opened under them and the long slide into," he looked around and then silently mouthed, "Hell."

"No problem, God. I just wish I knew how to help with this Valentine Island business. What happens if we don't get it straightened out?"

"Oh, not much. Love flowers on that island, and the pollen floats on the winds and over the seas to the rest of the world. If Love dies, on the island, soon the rest of the world's love will die too. Sex will become strictly for pleasure, children will be allowed to do as they wish, animals will be hurt and killed. Caring and joy will die, followed soon by faith, hope, and respect. Wars that are small will consume the world and then, well, there will be nothing left."

Cupid sat, stunned into silence. He stared into God's eyes, seeing the sadness, the emptiness of mankind's future. Finally he sat forward. "There's nothing you can do, God? You are all powerful. You created everything. Can't you fix this with a wave of your hand?"

"It's not exactly as easy as convincing an entire generation of female teenagers that Mick Jagger was sexy. I still have a hard time believing I pulled that one off. Love is much more tough, much more intricate. It's more than sex, more than caring. It's not logical or rational. And it can be selfish. Love is more than a feeling, more than words, more than sex between two people." He sighed and dropped his head into his hands.

Cupid was startled. He'd never thought he'd see God looking defeated. He had to help. Especially since God was depending upon him so much. He sat straighter, his wings raising, his quiver rattling as he thrust out his tiny chest. "What can I do?"

God sat forward in his chair and put his hand on Cupid's. "This is going to be rough, Cupid. I don't want you to think it'll be easy. You need to go to the island and fix Love. And you need to do it before Valentine's Day." He reached over and plucked one of Cupid's arrows out of his quiver. He held it in front of the cherub. "Look at your arrow. As Love dies, your arrow will grow dimmer also. These arrows are dipped in Love, that's what gives them their power and makes them so red. If you fail, your arrows will grow black. If that happens, you need to come back up here, Cupid. You don't want to be caught in the he..." God looked around quickly and sighed, "heck that will be happening down there."

"Valentine's Day? But that's less than four days from now." Exasperated, Cupid nodded, taking his arrow back from God. He noticed a smudge on the tip, a fingerprint that had to have come from the big man. He reached out without thinking, grabbed the nearest cloth, and started polishing the grease off the tip.

"Excuse me!" The voice boomed from everywhere and almost made Cupid deaf. He glanced up and saw he was polishing his arrow with the hem of God's robe. With a gasp of shock, and a large dose of fear, he let go of the robe and jolted back.

God picked up the soiled hem and stared at it in disgust. He dropped it and glared at Cupid, then got up and stormed to the other side of the desk. He picked up some papers and a number of them to Cupid. "These are your traveling documents and your ticket. Getting to the island isn't easy. I booked you public transport down to the Triangle. From there..."

Cupid jumped up and interrupted, an almost mortal sin in the presence of the Almighty, who always liked to have the last word. "The Bermuda Triangle? I can't go there. You know what's in that Godforsaken place?"

"Yeah, Cupe buddy, I do, that's why I forsook it." He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "You didn't let me finish though. I got you a guide through the Triangle. She's good. She'll get you through okay."

"Who?" the tiny cherub asked distrustfully.

"Hope."

"No." Cupid started shaking his small head, his wings fluttering in outrage. "There's no way in Hell that I'll be trusting Hope with my life."

At the sound of John Denver's quavery voice, God flicked his hand at the elevator without looking at it and decided he needed to put his foot down at the next CEO meeting about getting his red button back. Just getting rid of the elevator took up half his day. "Now let's not exaggerate, Cupid. She's not that bad and she's a fantastic guide."

"I heard what happened to the Atlanteans, God. I know Hope was supposed to guide them out of there."

"She was having a bad day," God said, resting his hands on his desk.

"She got them all killed and destroyed their civilization forever," Cupid exclaimed.

"Yeah, and it was a bad day. She's done a lot better lately. You'll be fine," God said, trying to sound soothing, not an easy job with a voice that boomed worse than some thumpers street racing on the strip in Las Vegas.

Cupid stared at the head man in disbelief. Not only was he being asked to do a job that was outside his purview, but it was in a strange land that he couldn't fly to himself, and he had to go through the Bermuda Triangle, guided by a girl who looked 18 but was actually almost as old as Cupid himself and the biggest klutz in history.

"I need you to do this for me, Cupid. Do it for the team, for the angels up here and for the rest of mankind down below. I have faith in you, Cupe. I know you can get this job done." He folded the rest of the travel papers in two and stuck them inside Cupid's quiver. He patted the little angel on the head. "One leaving," he said, seemingly into the air.

As Cupid's chair opened under him, God turned and studied the star map stretched out on his desk where Cupid couldn't see it. "This one might work," he mumbled to himself and circled a bright blue and green planet with a sharpie pen. He cleared his throat as he stared down at the name under the planet. "And on the third day, God created the Edsel." His face screwed up and he shook his head. "No, that doesn't sound right at all, and is somehow vaguely familiar. I'll have to do better than that," erasing the name with a flick of his left eyebrow.

Still shrieking from when the chair opened under him, and before he could get his little wings in motion, Cupid slid down a long, sleek, silver chute. It twirled him over and around, upside down and sideways, then took him in almost a straight shot down that lasted several miles. Cupid closed his eyes, feeling the wind rushing past him, ruffling his wings and messing up his hair. His diaper gaped at one leg and the he felt the air flowing up and around his butt, the diaper billowing open like a parachute and slowing him down.

There was a juncture up ahead, the slide branching off into two directions with signs in big pink neon lights overhead. The side to the left said "Bermuda Triangle." The side to the right, the side the switch was set for, was for the Hawaiian Islands. Cupid breathed a huge sigh. No one was at the switch. He could forget about going through the Bermuda Triangle and he could spend the rest of mankind's reign on earth shooting, what did God call them? Oh yeah, honeys. He could shoot himself some honeys in grass skirts and find out what this sex thing was.

He was feeling smug and slightly superior. Even the big man himself makes mistakes. Suddenly, before he could think one more self- congratulatory thought, he was stopped as if he'd run into an invisible wall. His teeth rattled, his bones shook, and if he weren't immortal, he'd have probably broken his neck. He closed his eyes and mentally counted his wing feathers, noticing he now had two more missing.

"Hey, Cupid."

"Oh no," Cupid thought silently. He opened his eyes to mere slits and peeped at the girl standing in front of him. "Oh, no," he moaned again, this time aloud. "No, no, no. I'm going to Hawaii, I'm going to bask on the beaches with some suntanned honeys. I am not, I repeat, am not going anywhere with you, Hope."

"Geesh, I make one mistake, and it wasn't really my own fault, I might add, and now no one lets me forget it." The girl, black hair tumbling over her shoulders and down her back in full rich curls, her big cerulean blue eyes flashing with anger, sat down on the slide in front of him.

"Hope, you wiped out an entire race. How can that not be your fault?"

"PMS?"

Cupid's snort of disbelief was stopped by a loud rumbling noise behind him. He glanced around and noted a huge Hawaiian woman, her mountainous body swathed in yard after yard of bright red flowery muumuu, barreling her way down the slide, her legs straight out in front of her, a huge scream echoing behind.

"Uh, Hope?"

"I didn't mean to do it, Cupid. They were just so superior, so smug. They said they didn't need me and that they could do it themselves."

"Hope?" Cupid's voice got a little shriller as the woman grew closer. He could see her eyes, the whites shining brightly, and the pupils dilated in terror. Her long hair had escaped the nice bun she'd put it in before she'd died and now streamed along behind her.

"There was this one guy. You'd have thought he was God or something, the way he stomped around, lording it over people. He was wearing a dress, a damn dress. How can a guy be that smug and sarcastic when his privates are swinging in the open air? Then he actually had the gall to tell me that a girl, a little girl like me. couldn't lead his people out of the tribulation the Lord was giving them and into the promised land. Like Moses did any better? Maybe if I hadn't gotten stuck in that fucking box of Pandora's for so long I'd have done a better job."

"HOPE!" Cupid shouted. He couldn't be killed but getting mashed between these two was going to hurt. He could see the black outlines of huge purple flowers against the red in her muumuu, and he closed his eyes tight.

"What?" Hope asked, annoyed.

She looked up as she snarled the word, and her eyes grew wide as she saw the speeding red muumuu mountain about to run into them. She smacked a button on the edge of the slide and the track switched.

Cupid could swear he felt thick stubby fingers grasp at his wings as she flew by them, but before he had a chance to check, they were speeding down their own slide. He managed to keep his eyes open, and saw people of all races, sizes, and shapes careening down the silver troughs that led to all areas on the earth. He had heard about these slides. but never actually seen them before, and could hardly believe he was seeing them now. They were the Guardian Angel slides, and were the way for the new GA's to get down to their respective charges.

The slide they were on changed slowly as they got closer to earth. It became less shiny, more murky, and took on a decided damp feeling. Cupid could feel the wetness seep though the now less then pristine white of his diaper, and wanted to cry.

The ramp grew bumpy, and Cupid's teeth shook. He took off his quiver and held it in front of him, his hands carefully guarding his precious arrows. One of his arrows, in the wrong hands, could be a catastrophe. Only he knew who was to be shot, and what the exact right time for love to take hold was. Messing with the path of true love could be disastrous.

Look at Caligula, he was a perfect example of love gone bad. The man got hold of a love arrow and just had to stick it to his sisters. Then he stuck something else it to his sisters for years after that... And what about Lord Byron? His drunken antics were well known and the downfall of Cupid's predecessor, who, when last seen, had been reduced to delivering Valentine candygrams and as a stand in on New Year's eve. He was the laughing stock of the Arrow League.

His musings were suddenly interrupted as the slide dropped out from under him and he was unceremoniously dumped into the middle of the ocean. With his diaper sagging and full of water, his wings soggy masses of clumped feathers, he fought his way to the surface, clutching his quiver and bow. Wiping streamers of salt water out of his eyes, he looked up and saw Hope sitting, nice and dry, on a private transport cloud.

Hope couldn't help but giggle. "Oops," she said shrugging. "I'm sorry, Cupid. I pushed the button just a second too soon." She pointed up to where the dull silver of the slide was slowly moving back into place and disappearing from sight.

"I'm soaked and all you can say is 'oops?' " He fluttered his wet wings until they dried enough in the breeze to pull him from the water. His diaper sagged, the back falling down enough to show off a touch of Cupid butt crack.

Hope burst out laughing again, trying desperately to muffle it as Cupid settled onto the cloud next to her. She quickly shifted her dry, still white robes out of the way of the wet, ruffled and dingy cherub. "Nice plumber's butt you got going there, Cupes," she giggled.

If looks could kill, Hope would have been dead before she'd even begun. She pulled on a pair of dark blue glasses, kick-started the cloud, and took off through the Triangle, little eruptions of giggles exploding from her every time she looked at Cupid. He struggled to regain his dignity, a hard thing to do in a soggy diaper and with his quiver full of water and, ugh, a wriggling bluefish. The fish, after scraping a scale against one of Cupid's arrows, jumped out of the quiver, planted a wet, piscine kiss on Cupid's pursed little mouth, and then flipped off the low flying cloud and splashed back into the water.

Hope's laughter trailed behind them, intermixed with a string of curses that she'd never have thought a tiny cherubic angel would be capable to. She gunned the engine, zigzagging through the sky as if avoiding some kinds of huge objects. Her movements were quick, eyes flashing back and forth across the sky behind her glasses.

Cupid tried to sit up and fell over, his rounded little butt not wide enough to handle the abrupt course changes that Hope was making.

"What the hell are you doing, Hope?"

"You don't want to know," she said, biting her lip as she dodged to the left, then quickly brought the cloud back around to the right.

"Is there something wrong with this cloud transport or are you just incapable of driving it?" He reached out to grab the yoke from her hands, aggravation making him irrational.

She slapped at his hands. "No, stop it, you'll make me hit one of them."

Cupid searched the empty blue sky and even emptier blue water. He checked the horizons and saw not even the hint of a dark smudge that might indicate land. "What the hell are you talking about, Hope? There isn't anything out here."

Hope sighed and gestured with her head down to the floor at his feet, where another set of the dark blue glasses lay. "Put those on. But I'll warn you right now, you won't be happy with what you see." She accelerated suddenly and tanked at the yoke, almost making the small cloud jump sideways.

Cupid timed his move to Hope's erratic driving and reached down, picking up the blue glasses just as she started turning the other way. He glanced at the glasses, then opened them, giving them a more thorough going over. They were cat-eye glasses, the kind that teachers and librarians wore in the fifties. The corners were tilted and in the tiny points gleamed miniscule rubies and diamonds all in the shape of hearts.

He shrugged his shoulders, putting a hand down on the seat next to him as Hope stepped on the brakes, then accelerated suddenly, whipping him forwards and then backwards. With a quick glance at the busy driver, he pushed the glasses up on his nose and looked in front of them.

"Holy shit!!" he screamed as large stalactite-like rocks suddenly shot up from the no longer calm surface of the ocean. The sky seemed to shudder as flashes of lightning insanely traveled from the water up to the sky. The ocean was a swirling gray mass of waves that broke over the edges of the rocks, flowed around them, or were dashed to pieces by them. He screamed again as another rock shot up right in front of them, Hope slamming on the brakes then turning, using the natural propulsion of the small cloud to bounce off the stony surface.

He managed to glance behind them as his white knuckled grip on the seat beneath him became even more fierce. The sky was obliterated as the rocklike projections seem to close in, trapping them and keeping them from going back.

"Wha... What is all of this?" he shouted, his heart thundering as a bolt of lightning streaked from what seemed like right next to their cloud and shot up to explode in the heavens above.

"This is a protection grid. Shit!" Hope said, as she maneuvered around another rock. Her features were strained as she fought the cloud, the rocks and the strange weather. "Without the glasses, you can't see, feel, or hear any of this. It keeps people from getting too close to Valentine Island. You know what would happen if just the tiny bit of love on the tip of one of your arrows was let loose to the public? Imagine what it would be like if the entire island was found."

Cupid shuddered to think of it. "People would fall in love with everyone, everything, and even their own reflections. They'd fall in love with animals, with trees. And all their other emotions would be heightened, jealousy especially. People would become jealous over a look. A meeting of eyes could cause murder. It would be unreal, chaotic, like a hell on earth. Even Monica Lewinski would be able to get a date." He quivered at the thought. Even his quiver quivered.

"So, God came up with this protection grid. Only a few of us know the safe path through the rocks. But someone has changed it. I shouldn't be having this kind of trouble. Hang on!"

Hope tried to swerve and she almost made it. The cloud car's rear end just glanced off the tip of one of the rocks as it shot towards the sky. The car shimmied violently, as a sound ominously like that of a tire blowing reverberated through the air. Cupid felt the car tip and he grabbed hold of the seat with both his little hands. It tilted one way and then the other as Hope fought to keep them upright and out of the path of any more rocks.

A thud from the back caused Cupid to spin around in terror to look. One of the rocks had gotten near enough to ram into the rear, sending them rushing forward. Hope corrected their course with a muttered curse, her eyes scanning the skies and the waters as more obstacles sprang up to trap them.

"Hang on, Cupid, we might have to ditch. If we do, swim as fast as your little legs can go toward that glow. That's Valentine Island." She fought their way around another rock. A bolt of lightning missed them by inches, sending shock waves of static electricity through Cupid. He could feel the hair on this body standing up on end...